Exclusive: Huge Loss of Weapons in Uri Attack, Intel Assets Safe

The NIA has ascertained, the Uri attack caused a major loss of weaponry & cash in a “massive blow” to the amy.

The entire armoury of a battalion of the 6th Bihar regiment was damaged in a fire begun by terrorists who struck the Indian Army’s Uri brigade headquarters in north Kashmir three weeks ago, a preliminary probe by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has ascertained.

The Extent of Damage In the Uri Attacks

The NIA has established that all the weapons – an assortment of sophisticated machine guns – of the soldiers of the 6th Bihar regiment battalion were rendered unusable when one of the four terrorists who sneaked into the army facility in the early hours of September 18 set fire to several tents which housed the weapons as well as the soldiers.

This at a time when the army has been trying to keep under wraps the events leading to the attack and the damaging consequences of the terrorist raid on the Uri brigade HQ. The 6th Bihar regiment battalion was to relieve the 10th Dogra regiment battalion shortly after September 18.

Highly placed Srinagar-based army sources said that the terror strike at the brigade HQ could have been worse had important assets of three intelligence gathering agencies – the Research and Analysis Wing, the Intelligence Bureau and Military Intelligence – been hit by the terrorists. Intelligence gathering officers of the three agencies live and work out of the Uri brigade HQ.

NIA and other Northern Command sources claimed that the loss of weapons, numbering between 800 and 1,000, was a “massive blow” to the army in general and the 6th Bihar regiment in particular.

The regiment is in turmoil even as officers have discovered that besides the loss of men and weapons, the unit also lost a huge amount of cash.

Senior army source to The Quint

While the NIA is yet to establish the nature of the inflammable substance the terrorists used to set the tents on fire, investigators suspect it to be a high grade incendiary material the terrorists carried with them into the brigade HQ. What has startled agency investigators is the use of “highly insecure” tents to house both, men and weapons.

NIA Attempts to Piece Together Terrorists’ Entry Plan Into Uri

Disclosing to The Quint that the four terrorists may have reconnoitred the brigade HQ before striking in the wee hours of September 18, sources said that eyewitness accounts of soldiers who subsequently fought off and killed the well-armed Pakistani militants suggest that the raiders had “more than basic knowledge” of the army’s Uri complex.

Describing the terror attack on the Uri brigade HQ as one of the worst which “cannot be taken lightly even as decision makers in government are contemplating more surgical strikes against Pakistan-based terrorists in the future,” sources said that the army top-brass “will have to take a closer look at enhancing security in and around brigade HQs across all of Kashmir.”

While secrecy is being maintained about the massive security lapse that led to the September 18 attack, sources said that the terrorists, who were guided into the Uri brigade HQ by porters employed by the army, crossed the LoC at a location behind the facility. They crossed a hilly ridge behind the brigade HQ before cutting through the “weak” barbed wire fencing near Devi post and entering the complex around 4:30 AM.

Army officers at Uri have briefed the NIA that at least two soldiers spotted an “unknown” person in army battle fatigues in one part of the brigade HQ around the time the soldiers were to “fall in” for the early morning attendance. Both ignored the “unusual” presence of an unknown face even after they casually asked him who he was.

When the second soldier received no response, the terrorists hiding in different locations opened up with heavy firing. They swiftly headed for the tents and set them afire before killing all the eight cooks of the 6th Bihar regiment battalion.

“When one of the four terrorists headed for the officers’ mess and ripped off the curtain at the door of a room, the soldiers retaliated, killing him there,” an army source said, adding that the situation was reversed once an anti-mine Caspar vehicle reached the spot. “The soldier at the Caspar’s turret opened heavy fire, killing two terrorists. But it took a couple of more hours to liquidate the remaining two,” the source disclosed.

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